Conventional computerized devices, such as personal computers, laptop computers and the like, are often used to package video content (videos) into various forms (e.g., Digital Video Discs (DVDs)), that may be later played by a user. Often authoring tools are used to package the videos. An authoring tool is a software package which may be used by developers to package content deliverable to end users. This content may include a series of videos that are packaged by a developer on a DVD that may ultimately be played by an end user using a DVD reader. Here, the authoring tool may allow the developer to create the DVD by dragging and dropping various graphical objects that represent video clips into a DVD project. The authoring tool may then burn the video clips contained in the project onto a DVD disc to produce the DVD.
Videos typically comprise a series of smaller units called video frames (frames). A frame is a still image of the subject matter of the video. The images may be taken by a motion picture camera or may be produced using various software, such as animation software. Motion picture cameras typically capture a fixed number of digitized images of the subject matter each second. The digitized images are then processed into frames and placed in a video file. Video files that conform to the Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) standard typically contain 25 frames per second of video.
For each video clip in a DVD project, a developer creating a DVD project may select a single video frame that is representative of the content of the video clip as a “poster image” (also referred to as a “poster frame”). A poster frame is a video frame contained in a video that is used to represent the content of the video. In a typical arrangement, the developer may manually review the frames within a video clip and visually identify a frame that best represents the video clip. The developer may then specify the identified frame as the poster image poster that best represents the content of the video clip.